Valve describes the Steam Machines as "something special," calling it "a high-end, high-performance box, built out of off-the-shelf PC parts." The hardware, in its current form, is also about the size of a normal console, standing at about a foot long and a foot wide.

Check out the specs below. Keep in mind that the Steam Machine prototypes will not all be identical, which shouldn't come as a surprise when you consider that Valve is still testing the hardware.

GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660

CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3

RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU)

Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD

Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold

Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high

Valve also mentioned the Steam ecosystem changing over time with the new platform. They'll talk more about that, the weaknesses and strengths of hardware, upgrade decisions and more, down the line.

Considering the prices that lower specced 'gaming' machines cost, like that Piston thing, I wouldn't expect that to be cheap, since that is very high end. I'd be surprised if that comes in at least than £1000/$1000 or whatever that is.

They're selling services. That means they can afford to sell it at a loss, or at zero margin. Combined with deals with Intel and Nvidia, I wouldn't be surprised if the highest-end version drops at five-hundred or under. I doubt the company that virtually invented free to play and 'steam sales' wouldn't understand the value of selling low for high turnover.

By the sound of the dimensions, it sounds like the SM will be mountable to the back of a monitor or even an HDTV, which would be completely cool. I am also expecting the Steam App to include the ability to launch programs & games from your phone, or even act as a second screen in certain games.

Now hopefully the Steam controller works wirelessly, preferably by bluetooth. Of course the device will have native Oculus Rift support, or may actually come bundled in some boxes.

Then again Steambox is a PC, no custom solutions means it can buy higher ranged pieces for a much lower cost and a good design means it'll be cheap to manufacturer as well. Plus when it comes to companies like Amazon (who is currently trying to figure out ways to solve expensive phone plans and phones) and Google, the go to plan is do whatever you can to bring in more people and lock them to your ecoystem.

Android, Kindle and now Steambox. Selling steambox at a stupidly cheap (for specs) price and they will obviously grab some attention. The problem is figuring out Valves goals on what they want to do in the long term.

Are they going to sell these things in the gaming section of department stores or computers? What about gamestop, just how would a steambox look compared to xbox?

Valve is going to have to take an aggressive stance and market this "console" against the current Big 3 2 while at the same time educate people what modular consoles are. It shouldn't be too hard though, slap on a black box with the steam logo, include a picture list of recently released games then next to it put "Upcoming random Steam sales that happen all the time (ALL. THE. TIME.) and list the prices of these things next to them. Boom your done.

Spoiler:

Highlight this box with your cursor to read the spoiler text.does this mean I can finally play tomb raider with tress fx?

An i7 + titan steambox at >= $500? *bleep* please. No way intel or nvidia would allow such prices - itd retardely undercut their standalone CPU/GPU sales. But... Seeing how "next gen" consoles are all amd/ati... Intel/nvidia could do this if they wanted to crap all over amd/ati and if they were smoking enough crack.

Anyhow this is a step toward stronger pc homogeneity which could spell greater effeciency and performance. Away with dx! Time for some real fancy shit

Considering the prices that lower specced 'gaming' machines cost, like that Piston thing, I wouldn't expect that to be cheap, since that is very high end. I'd be surprised if that comes in at least than £1000/$1000 or whatever that is.

This, i have doubts on the price of the machine, it cant be that cheap really.

I expect the highest end to be at or over $1000 US, even if they subsidize the cost a bit.

Also, what genius at Valve decided "Let's do what every other idiot with too much money does, and include 2x as much ram as would ever be needed for the average gamer!"

Unless you're doing very high end multimedia (IE: High-resolution Photoshop or intensive video editing), you'll never use even close to 16GB of RAM. Better less RAM (like 8GB ceiling for now), but faster speeds. That would be of more benefit.

Northern49 - It is almost certainly wireless, the Steam controller, but would likely include a wired option (charging and so it could be used as a wired controller, no adapter needed). I'd hate it to be bluetooth though. At least, not as the standard wireless connection. In addition to the usual high frequency wireless connection, bluetooth would be good for portable devices like smartphones, but for standard use Bluetooth sucks. Cruddy range, and drains the battery pretty fast I believe.

Shadow of DeathSince they're just prototypes Valve might have gone with 16GB to keep things as static as possible during testing. They won't need it but they won't have to worry about running out either, so the difference in CPU and GPU performance is all thats left.

If they use it in the final product then it could be they don't want people to have to worry about opening them up if they don't want to, and a lot of people won't. Few people would need that much but RAM is cheap enough that you can make sure people are set for life without braking the bank. Keeping the different SKUs as consistent as possible would also be a good idea.

I expect the highest end to be at or over $1000 US, even if they subsidize the cost a bit.

Also, what genius at Valve decided "Let's do what every other idiot with too much money does, and include 2x as much ram as would ever be needed for the average gamer!"

Unless you're doing very high end multimedia (IE: High-resolution Photoshop or intensive video editing), you'll never use even close to 16GB of RAM. Better less RAM (like 8GB ceiling for now), but faster speeds. That would be of more benefit.

From what I heard, you will be able to replace/upgrade any parts in the Steam Mach., I guess you can take those RAM cards out and leave it at 8GB (if possible). Though it would a waste since you would be better off building your own PC, oh well. The idea at Valve might have sounded nice on paper, but it really seems like a waste of time and money on their part, including Nvidia and Intel. It's kinda stupid how the prototypes are coming with different types of GPUs, especially with that low-power PSU, I suspect witchcraft.

Won't be long till Nvidia flaunts around and makes everyone that use PCs sound like elitist *bleep* to all the people buying the Xbone & PS4.